GREEN & GROW

By Carolyn Lucey

This catalog of mentor texts was initially born out of my desire to explore essential questions that I, myself, am interested in: What is the relationship between humans and the natural world? How can we write about the natural world in ways that are evocative, immerse us in particular places and times, or instigate action on some of the most intractable issues of our times? 

Yet as I began the project of putting together a catalog of texts, I found myself returning to the framework of culturally responsive teaching. Would this topic only serve some students? Certainly my students at my school in Ojai, CA l had been inspired and energized by this writing topic. But OVS was a place with a strong outdoor education component, where students regularly hiked, camped, kayaked, and gardened. They were also mostly white, affluent, and able to participate in the rapidly growing outdoor industry. They see themselves reflected in the classic writers of the genre (Thoreau, Whitman) and in the decision-makers, policy experts, and all-stars of the contemporary conversation (from Greta Thunberg to Alex Honnold). 

But what would these questions mean to students in my current teaching context, at a Title 1 high school in New York City, where my students are mainly black and brown, where the school does not have the resources to fund sports fields, let alone week-long backpacking trips? Would they connect with the topic to begin with, and see it as interesting? Moreover, though I had been taught that the voices of “environmental writing” are largely white and from the U.S. or European countries, is that even true? 

And so I began the task of disrupting my initial plans for the resources and approaches on this website. While I did include some of the “canon” writers in nature-and-environment writing, I also intentionally sought out other voices. Some writers of color are located specifically within a “Critical Race Lens” tag, as they explicitly question the role of power, access, and voice. Others I intentionally chose to frame outside the bounds of that context — after all, we don’t constantly frame Mary Oliver’s writing as defined by her “whiteness”, and Jamaica Kincaid need not always be read through the lens of her race, either. 

Below are some of the elements of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy that I considered in my project. In general, I asked myself whether the approach would be based in student voice and inquiry, one that centers the students as knowledge-makers in the classroom, and one that provides students the opportunity to read the world through a critical lens. I also asked whether there would be a wide range of voices and whether process would take precedence over product. These items were distilled from Writing Instruction in the Culturally Relevant Classroom, by Maisha T. Winn and Latrise P. Johnson: 

1. This course would be inquiry driven, broadly, in the sense that it was inspired by real students questions, interests, and excitement. As authors Maisha T. Winn and Latrise P. Johnson state, a purposeful classroom should work on “connecting the students and their interests with the world around them”. Since young people are the ones who will inherit our current decisions about nature, shouldn’t they have a voice in saying what should happen to the natural world? For upcoming students, I would allow their own experiences and questions to guide the kinds of texts we selected. 

2. This course would aim to validate and honor the language, experiences, and culture of my students. There is far to go in terms of gathering a truly wide range of authors, texts, and experiences for my mentor texts, but some current examples include: Jamaica Kincaid (a black, Antiguan woman) writing about New England and the complexities of her community. In this text, she completely explodes the concept of “Standard Written English” as the ‘best’ form for expressing her ideas. She writes in a way that is lyrical, colloqial, complex. It is in dialogue with Virginia’s Wolf’s Mrs.Dalloway, but also with vivid descriptions of Toni Morrison. An author like W.E.B. DuBois writes alongside some of the usual “canon” authors, at times contributing beautiful descriptive prose, and at others unpacking the role of power and race in his analytical essay. 

3. Perhaps most importantly, this course frames the most important author as the student themselves. By asking them to bring their own experiences into the classroom — through journaling, by producing writing based on prompts pulled from their lives — I celebrate their voices and treat my students as valid knowledge-makers in the larger social conversation. 

4. I also think it’s vitally important that “Environmental Writing” be taught alongside a critical stance towards our traditional notions of “nature”, “wild”, “human”, and “power”. Critique is a central tenant of culturally relevant pedagogy, and I would want to be open with my student about those who are typically this proposed course and approach. Why is it that, historically, white men have been the most upheld authors of ‘nature writing’? How did colonialism and westward expansion create the genre in the first place (who was displaced? why were those who actually labored on the land not seen as authorities)? Whose voices have traditionally been valued, and where are we able to find examples of that power overturned? Who still holds power in our dialogue about the outdoor industry, climate change? 

The focus of this course is on process rather than product. See more about this in the post on Writer’s Workshop model.